by Max Hudson
“No, it’s fine,” Luca said. “You don’t… you don’t have to explain.”
“I like to explain,” Brooklyn said. “I like to explain myself to you. I like talking to you.”
Luca looked down at his feet, his cheeks red. “You do?”
“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “I was wondering how long it would take you to call.”
Luca licked his lips and shook his head, chuckling quietly with relief. “I was honestly so worried that you’d already moved on and found someone else,” he said. “When I texted you, I was sure that you were never going to get back to me.”
It was Brooklyn’s turn to laugh nervously. When he looked at him, Luca realized that he hadn’t asked him to sit, and he felt like a jerk. “Sit down, please,” he said.
There was a sofa in front of his bed, one which he rarely used unless he was doing some sort of exercise. Most of the time, when he was watching TV or doing something else like that, he stayed on his bed and did it from there.
He supposed it was a good place to put the moves on Brooklyn, then shook his head slightly. That couldn’t come yet, not until after the movie, at least. If it even happened like that.
Luca wanted to take things as slow as possible, mostly because he was terrified that he would end up fucking everything up. Since it was not something he hadn’t done before, he didn’t think it would be particularly odd or out of the ordinary if he did end up fucking it up this time.
He sat down next to Brooklyn and smiled at him. “I’m glad you said yes.”
“I’m glad I said yes too,” Brooklyn replied, his green eyes shining. “You’re looking pretty amazing, actually.”
“Thank you?”
Brooklyn laughed, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” he said. “You just seem like you’re healing really well. It’s great.”
Luca smiled back at him. He could see the little wrinkles around Brooklyn’s eyes, and he didn’t think that they should be making him appear even more attractive, but they definitely did. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s been pretty good. I’ve been doing all my homework and everything. I’m glad you noticed.”
“Yeah, of course I noticed,” Brooklyn said, as if Luca healing well was the most obvious thing in the world. He grabbed Luca’s face with his hand, taking hold of his chin and starting to move him around as if he was a doll. Luca had to try not to laugh, though he couldn’t deny that he was quite amused by the way that Brooklyn was treating him. “Your face is fine, and you're walking normally. How is your pain?”
Brooklyn let go of his face and Luca shrugged. “Honestly, the pain comes and goes.”
Brooklyn nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Luca said, sighing deeply. “Sometimes it's worse than others, and sometimes I'm pretty sure I'm never going to be able to ride a motorcycle again. But honestly, if that's the worst that happened during that terrible accident, I think I'm probably okay.”
“It must be hard for you, though,” Brooklyn said solemnly.
Luca shrugged again, giving him a little smile. “It's a little hard. It's more like I want to ride a bike because it makes me look cool, and really, that’s the one thing I have going for me.” Brooklyn laughed, throwing his head back. Luca’s heart did a flip in his chest. He had forgotten just how much he liked listening to Brooklyn laugh. He had almost forgotten how much he liked being around Brooklyn full stop.
Brooklyn shook his head. “I don't know many people who would admit that.”
Luca smiled, wiggling his eyebrows. “Well, you don't know me that well. In fact, you're still just getting to know me right now, so I still have a chance.”
Brooklyn look right at him, a smile on his face. “You definitely still have a chance.”
“That’s good to know,” Luca said. He bit his lower lip and looked away from him. “Do you normally date patients?”
Brooklyn shook his head. “I don’t normally date at all.”
“I didn’t, until the accident,” Luca said. “The last person I was with was Derek.”
“That makes sense.”
“Then I met you, and something shifted,” Luca said.
“Is that right?”
“Kind of,” Luca said, smiling broadly. “It’s kind of half the story, but it’ll do for now. It’s more romantic like that. Plus the last thing that I want to do is freak you out.”
“You think you’re going to freak me out?” Brooklyn said, shaking his head. “You know that I’m a nurse, right?”
“Right,” Luca said. “So the last thing that you want to deal with when you get out of work is a crazy person.”
Brooklyn smiled, his eyes shimmering. “You know, it’s funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“You are,” Brooklyn said. “Because now you’re well, or almost well, and shit, I still like you a lot.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing…”
Brooklyn shook his head. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I just, when there’s an accident, people are so vulnerable. They work without masks, you know, no humor, nothing.”
“Right.”
“And your mask, well, it’s a big part of who you are,” Brooklyn said. “I needed to make sure that I was going to like it.”
“Well,” Luca said. “How is it so far?”
“So far, pretty great,” Brooklyn replied with a smile. “I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect you to be funny. I mean, I can look at you. You’re hot.”
“I feel like I should be offended by that,” Luca said. “But thanks. You’re hot, too.”
Brooklyn smiled, shaking his head. “Yeah, maybe you should be offended,” he said.
Luca sighed. “I know I was kind of a miserable person to be around when we last saw each other,” he said, shaking his head. “And I’m sorry about that. Because I didn’t want to be, but everything felt like it was up in the air for me.”
“It’s okay,” Brooklyn replied. “I get it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah,” Brooklyn said. “I was a miserable bastard after my own accident. I mean, in front of people, I had to hold it together because of my sister, but in general, I was terrible to be around.”
Luca smiled. “Guess it’s pretty universal.”
“When you’re a guy… I mean, this happens to everyone, but I think it’s harder for men…” Brooklyn said. “And power is taken out of your hands like that, you start freaking out. Because all your life you’ve been told that the best thing you can do is be self-reliant. And suddenly, you might not be, and I honestly think there’s probably nothing scarier than that.”
“That makes sense,” Luca said. “I remember being terrified, but I wasn’t sure of what. Maybe it was all the change.”
“Are you still?”
“Still what?”
“Terrified,” Brooklyn said quietly.
Luca shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I’m not terrified. I’m a little scared and things aren’t nearly as clear as they were before the accident. But I’m not terrified anymore. Honestly, a lot of me feels relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“I feel like… there’s some baggage I have to deal with, obviously, and if it hadn’t been for the accident I might still be ignoring it,” Luca said. “But then I think, okay, I’m young, so maybe it was just that I had to give myself some time. Honestly, the more I talk about this, the weirder it gets.”
“Why?” Brooklyn said. He had scooted closer to Luca and had grabbed his hand. Brooklyn was holding him and Luca couldn’t help but look up at him and smile, despite how confused he felt. There was one thing he was sure he didn’t feel confused about, and that was Brooklyn. The way that Brooklyn made him feel when he was simply around him was making Luca feel a little dizzy.
“Because it’s contradictory,” Luca said. “I want to tell you something concrete, but sometimes I feel like the accident was a blessing and sometimes I can’t help but feel that it was a curse.”
<
br /> Brooklyn nodded and squeezed Luca’s hand, which made Luca’s body react far too much. He crossed his legs and looked away from Brooklyn, telling himself to keep things under control. He wanted to impress Brooklyn, not chase him away by being a total horndog.
“That’s pretty common too,” Brooklyn said.
Luca smiled. “You know, it’s funny, because a lot of the things that I say to you, you tell me they’re pretty common. But personally, I always feel pretty alone in this particular experience.”
Brooklyn nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Being in an accident, having it affect the rest of your life—it’s an isolating experience. Some people know people who have survived accidents or who have died from them.”
Luca nodded along as Brooklyn talked.
Brooklyn shrugged before he continued speaking. Luca loved the way his voice sounded, so low and gravelly. “But most people, well, they haven't been in an accident and they don't know how to act. That's why it's so hard.”
Luca agreed. He squeezed Brooklyn’s hand before he spoke. He loved the way that Brooklyn’s skin felt under his, soft and warm, and he never wanted to let him go. “You’re right,” he said. “Being in an accident is an isolating experience.”
Brooklyn looked right at his face, which made Luca stare straight into his eyes. When Brooklyn spoke, Luca could tell that he was extremely serious. “But you know, there are groups out there for survivors. If you have PTSD or anything like that, there are groups of people that you can talk to. There are ways for you to feel less alone.”
Luke sighed as he shook his head. “I don't think I have PTSD,” he replied, his voice a whisper. He didn’t know why he felt comfortable admitting this around Brooklyn when he didn’t feel comfortable even admitting it in front of his own therapist. Maybe it was because Brooklyn understood it, because he had also gone through something similar. “I mean, it's hard sometimes, but I don't think I feel like that. I can talk to my therapist about it though.”
“It might be worth it,” Brooklyn said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Luca replied. “Maybe going to a group therapy setting would be good for me.”
Brooklyn nodded, his gaze still firmly on Luca’s eyes. It was a little intense and Luca had to break away from staring at him, if only for a second. This was all a lot. “Yeah,” Brooklyn said, finally breaking eye contact too. Luca couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. “It was very good for me.”
Luca looked at him. He had admitted that pretty casually and Luca couldn’t help but love the way that Brooklyn talked about this, with such openness. Most people shied away from discussing something like a life-altering accident, but not Brooklyn. Luca couldn’t help but love him for that, at least a little bit.
It felt like he was the first person in his entire life that was okay with talking about this openly and honestly, other than people that were paid to. His friends and his family listened, of course, but Luca had to withhold some pivotal information from them a lot of the time and it didn’t make him feel good. It was mostly things that he felt that nobody else needed to know, like how hopeless it felt a lot of the time or when he would wake up in a sweat from a nightmare where he had lived through the accident over and over again.
It all felt unnecessary. Until Brooklyn, when it finally started to feel like maybe it was okay to talk about these things. Brooklyn was looking at him with something like curiosity in his eyes and Luca could feel himself blushing. “Can I ask you something?”
Brooklyn nodded. “Of course,” he said. “You can ask me anything. I might not answer, or I might not know the answer, but I promise you I’ll try my best.”
“I think you’ll know the answer to this,” Luca replied. “Did you think that things were going to be normal after your accident?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you feel like things would go back to the way they were, and everything would be okay?”
Brooklyn furrowed his brow as he considered this. “No, I never thought they were going to be normal again. Or rather, I tried really hard to adjust my definition of what normal was. Normal doesn’t mean expected, you know, it’s more just like… what works for you. It’s arbitrary.”
Luca blinked. He had never heard that definition before, but it made sense to him even though he had just heard about it. “I guess you’re right,” Luca replied. “It doesn’t feel arbitrary, though.”
“I mean, I think there’s questions you need to ask yourself. Mostly, are you healthy? Are you happy? Do you see your life ending somewhere that you want it to be? That kind of thing,” Brooklyn replied. “And if the answer to those questions is yes, then I think you need to think of that as your new normal.”
“Huh,” Luca said. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“It’s how I think about it,” Brooklyn said with a little smile that all but melted Luca’s heart. “But of course, it took a long time for me to get here. It wasn’t easy; it took a lot of hard work.”
“Was it worth it?”
Brooklyn took a little time to think about it before he answered. “Yes,” he replied. “It was absolutely worth it.”
“Good,” Luca said. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you and tell you that it’s been easy, because it hasn’t been,” Brooklyn said. “It’s been really hard, and at times, I’ve genuinely thought that I couldn’t do it. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, but it’s also probably the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.”
Luca nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said. “Is it stupid if I say that I’m scared?”
“Scared of what?” Brooklyn asked.
“Scared of, I don’t know, fucking up my recovery,” Luca said, shaking his head. “I know how stupid that sounds, but I mean. What if I fuck it up?”
“Then you’ll fix it,” Brooklyn said. “It’s not a straight line, you know. Things zigzag. They go up and down. And then you fix them. That’s what you do in life and that’s what you should do when it comes to your recovery, too.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Luca replied. “It’s just hard.”
“I know it’s hard,” Brooklyn said. “Luca, I don’t know how to make you understand this. It’s still worth it.” Luca nodded. “I believe you. I’m just scared.”
“Hey,” Brooklyn said, squeezing his hand. “I’m here.”
“I know,” Luca said. “Which is still blowing my mind.”
“Why? Why do you think you’re so hard to like?”
“I don’t,” Luca said, shaking his head. “I think you’re out of my league, though.”
Brooklyn laughed, throwing his head back. “You’re being ridiculous,”
“Maybe, but have you seen you? You look like you could fight a horse.”
“A horse?” Brooklyn said, raising his eyebrows.
“Well, I mean, don’t,” Luca said. “That wasn’t a suggestion. I was just saying, you know, you’re very physically fit.”
“That’s true.”
“And I worry because I’m not as fit.”
“Are you joking?” Brooklyn said, rolling his eyes. “Aren’t you a sales rep for Athlete Star? You’re probably the definition of fit.”
“Maybe,” Luca replied. “But it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Seriously,” Brooklyn said, rolling his eyes. “If anything, you’re out of my league.”
“What do you mean?” Luca said, cocking his head. He was pretty sure that Brooklyn had started to mock him, but he sounded pretty sincere and Luca wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Brooklyn didn’t seem like the kind of person who would have anyone that was out of his league, but Luca also didn’t think that Brooklyn was the kind of person to mock him and this felt like it was dangerously close to mocking him.
“I mean,” Brooklyn said. “You got out of your accident pretty much unscathed. Have you seen your face? You look like a fashion model, with the cheekbones and chocolate brown eyes and t
hen…”
Luca watched him.
Brooklyn cleared his throat. “It’s as if nothing ever happened. There’s not a scratch on it. I was lucky, but I always have to wear long-sleeves if I want to make sure that no one sees my scars.”
Luca’s eyes widened. “Even during the summer?”
Brooklyn sighed, shaking his head. “I mean, what am I going to do? Go to the beach?”
“I don’t know,” Luca said. “Why couldn’t you go to the beach?”
“Because,” Brooklyn replied, shaking his head once more, his gaze darting from his right arm to his left arm. “No one wants to see this shit.”
“I want to.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to see it,” Luca said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “When we first came back to my place, that night that I ran into you, you told me that you were going to show me your scars.”
“I did,” Brooklyn said.
Luca closed his eyes, trying to ignore how hot his cheeks felt, how red they must be. “And I want to see them now.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Luca replied, nodding his head. His mouth was slightly open and he was almost positive that Brooklyn was going to say no, from the look on his face, but instead Brooklyn looked intensely at him, his eyes slightly closed.
“Are you going to laugh at me?”
“Am I going to laugh at you?” Luca repeated, his eyes wide. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know,” Brooklyn replied, shrugging. “You were vulnerable when I first told you that so I knew that you weren’t going to make fun of me.”
“I would never make fun of you,” Luca replied, shaking his head. “I would never, ever make fun of you. I would definitely never make fun of your scars.”
Brooklyn scoffed. “I guess I know that,” he said. “I don’t know why I thought that you would. I guess I’m just nervous.”
“You haven’t gone out with anyone since your accident?”
Brooklyn shook his head. “Kind of,” he said. “Not seriously. I honestly prefer sex in the dark, because…”
“But you’re gorgeous,” Luca said when Brooklyn trailed off, blinking. “I don’t know why you don’t believe that.”